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Way too many favorites of incredible content this past year, but thought I’d highlight these. Jos Truitt really encompasses what it means to be a “thought leader” to me — one of many examples was in, “I am not your tragic trans narrative”:

Here’s the thing: we’ve all got our own experiences, but in mine being trans is not tragic. It’s incredible. In fact, I’m fucking amazing. And my transness has a lot to do with that. I’ve broken one of the most absolute rules handed down by our culture, and that gives me a vision that goes beyond what seems possible to what’s needed and desired. Coming out may have felt like a necessity, but it’s given me incredible strength, the ability to take big leaps of faith, make exciting mistakes, and find liberating new possibilities. I’ve become a more caring, compassionate friend in a real way, because I also take care of myself. And it’s given me an extraordinary community if trans and gender non-conforming folks and allies who are honest, direct, incredibly loving, and fucking hilarious. And hot. So damn hot.

What’s tragic is a culture that thinks trans folks are so wrong it wants us dead, or that insists we must conform to a tragic narrative to excuse our existence. That’s the problem, not being trans. Which I happen to think is pretty fucking awesome.

Justice is a lot of things, but it’s first and foremost a concept. Sure, it has real-life, tangible implications: a parking ticket, a middle school detention slip, a prison sentence, a financial reward. Sometimes, people are killed in the name of justice. And there are all different kinds: vigilante, state-sanctioned, interpersonal.

But justice itself is abstract by definition. You can’t hold it in your hand, or give it to someone as a gift. And this is something we often forget: for something that doesn’t actually physically exist, we sure expect a lot out of it.

We as a community look to justice to “make things right”: to heal our pain (or at least make sense of it), vindicate us, make up for the loss of our loved ones. In many ways, it’s doomed to fail because of the expectations we’ve placed upon it.

In fact, there are very few other concepts from which we expect as much as we do from justice. We don’t have entire government systems devoted to upholding things like peace, love, or happiness (although maybe we’d be better off if we did!), nor do we have people appointed to pursuing them, or accountable for achieving them, as we do for justice.

As 2011 ends, I must say I’m pretty damn thankful to be part of this brilliant crew of bloggers. Happy holidays and new year, all.

The recent, tragic uptick in murders of trans women of color seems to be finally drawing the attention outside trans circles. Simply caring is sadly not enough, though. A Facebook status about how awful the violence is won’t actually make the world a better place.

But there are real, practical actions you can take.

An epidemic of murders doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s related to the systemic oppression of trans women that exposes the most vulnerable to violence. It’s directly related to the extreme discrimination trans women face in areas like housing, public accommodations, employment, healthcare access, physical and sexual assault, etc. The worst of this lands on low income women of color, because intersectionality. Extreme poverty and a lack ...

The recent, tragic uptick in murders of trans women of color seems to be finally drawing the attention outside trans circles. Simply caring is sadly not enough, though. A Facebook status about how awful the violence ...

That’s what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others. We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some fragile thing. We are large, in the words of Whitman, containing multitudes. We are boisterous and diverse and full of energy, perpetually young in spirit. That’s why someone like John Lewis at the ripe old age of 25 could lead a mighty march.

And that’s what the young people here today and listening all across the country must take away from this day. You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what ...

That’s what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others. We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear ...

Hopefully, by now you know that calling people the pronouns they want to be called is a basic and necessary way to demonstrate respect for their identities. This includes learning to use non-binary pronouns, such as singular “they.”

But using singular they is far more than a way to respect friends who have gender identities outside the binary. Singular they has exciting potential to be part of a radical shift in the dominant gender culture. Changing the culture may seem like a mighty task for one little pronoun. But actually, it wouldn’t be the first time that a pronoun was near the center of a momentous cultural shift.

First, a ...

Ed. note: This post was originally published on the Community site.

Hopefully, by now you know that calling people the pronouns they want to be called is a basic and necessary way to demonstrate respect for their ...